So, having seen your very recent video about casinos in Macau, and hearing mention of this series, I decided to prowl through your archive and have a look. I lived in Macau for about eight months from November 1998 to June 1999 - my father started work there, and would remain there for half a decade, but I was in my last year of high school, so I only stayed until the end of the school year before going back to Poland. However, because I ultimately ended up going to university in Australia, I travelled again through Macau in December 1999, staying until January before going on to Australia - so, I was there for the takeover ceremonies. Later, I would be visiting my parents between semesters, so I would get brief but regular snapshots of Macau during that period. With regards to the takeover, the photo around 7:25 really brings back memories. I was on that street that day - who knows, I might have been metres from where that photo was taken. We watched the parade-like entrance of Chinese troops as they drove through the street up to the parking lot of their new barracks, right in the middle of the city (the location was very show-of-force, although to be fair, I think it was temporary until they would establish a base in a more out-of-the-way location). Later that day, we climbed up to the top of Guia Hill, where the lighthouse is, and from where you can look on to most of the city centre, and I took a photo from there of that parking lot filled with armoured vehicles. Of course, even if my father really loved his cameras and had quite a nice one, it didn't have the kind of zoom lens you'd need to really make an interesting photo - which is probably a good thing, as I can just imagine being arrested by some over-eager police officer for espionage, had I been there with a long telescope ;). Meanwhile, my father, as a university professor, was also invited to attend the handover ceremony itself, though of course, he was just one of thousands of people in the audience, certainly not on the stage or anything like that. With regards to the zeitgeist of that period, and my experiences and conversations with people in Macau at that time and in later years, there's a few things worth noting: 1. The Portuguese désintéressement was plainly visible, not to mention that it was something you heard about from all the long-term inhabitants. If you went to Hong Kong at that time, almost everyone spoke English - in Macau, however, almost no one spoke Portuguese. It was only in the last two decades before the handover that the Portuguese actually started making an effort in the area of education, and most people felt that this was basically being done not out of any conviction, but just to avoid public embarrassment should the education system (or lack thereof) come under scrutiny after the handover. This is not to say education was poor in Macau - it simply wasn't bound into a unified system. There were many schools, and some followed a more Chinese curriculum, others were Chinese-speaking clones of Portuguese schools, there was a few very select schools that taught in Portuguese, and two international schools that taught in English, one under a Canadian curriculum (this is where I finished school), and the other under its own curriculum. Likewise with universities - there was one main university. IU had heard a rumour, that the university was founded by some rich Macanese who were unhappy about their kids not being accepted to the HK university - whether there is any truth to this, I do not know, but certainly the university did not have a strong reputation. Then, there was the very strange institution where my father worked - today, it's the University of St Joseph, but at the time it was called the Inter-University Institute of Macau (try saying that quickly!). From what I know, it is a real university today, but back then, the institution had like half a dozen permanent staff members, and most courses would be run by visiting lecturers who would be brought in for a few weeks - and all the courses were taught in evenings, as the students were all part-time. This institution was directly governed by the Catholic bishop of Macau, and this also meant that it was very haphazard at that time - it seems everybody was taking a "wait and see" approach in the run-up to the handover... and even afterwards, too. It was very plain to see that the higher echelons of the institute and the diocese were planning to "escape" to Portugal as soon as possible. Neither me, nor anyone in my family had any need to use any medical facilities in Macau during our time there, but from what I recall, it was the same story again: yes, there were hospitals, yes, they had a reasonable standard, and in fact were fairly recently built... because again, the government did not want to hand over a territory with a near-absent healthcare system. So, overall, it seems that the inevitability of the upcoming handover actually did wonders for Macau's government policies - they went to work specifically to prepare the territory for handover. 2. The enthusiasm of the Macanese for the handover was, as far as we could see, absolutely genuine. This was not Hong Kong. We could see the enthusiasm on the street the day the Chinese troops drove in, and besides this, it was easy to see that the Macanese were for the most part emotionally and intellectually Chinese. For example, when in 1999 US aircraft bombed the Chinese embassy in Kosovo, I could see that the outrage of my Macanese classmates was absolutely genuine. That having been said, my father also noted that he could see an influx of Chinese agents on the streets in the run-up to the takeover. Whether this was true or not is difficult to say - they weren't exactly wearing labels, but if my father, who had spent so many years under communism in Poland, felt that these people were recognisably government agents, I kinda take his word for it. 3. Strangely, it was possible at that time to live in Macau and be entirely oblivious to the crime problems that you discussed in your recent Macau video. At one point, during a class discussion, the topic of crime came up, and the teacher asked us who felt safe walking on the streets of Macau at night - and I was the only one who raised his hand. It took a while for it to sink in that this wasn't because my classmates were somehow paranoid, but rather because my family, being white, and having no contact with the casinos, would have basically been "off limits" within the local crime wars. Either way, however, I know now that when we arrived in Macau in November 1998, the worst of the crime wave was over. We literally never saw anything criminal on the streets, and given that my father's lectures were in the evenings, it wasn't unusual for us to be walking around the city at 10PM or later, eating in the restaurants, or simply taking a walk. Then again, we never got near the casinos - that is to say, we never went into them, and while you kinda have to walk past them when navigating the city during the day, we never got near them at night, so we basically kept away from the epicentre of crime. 4. My impression from later visits (the last time I was in Macau was 2018) is that the Macanese eventually did cool off on their love of the PRC - i.e. that reality of PRC rule was not what they had hoped for. However, they are also realistic about their prospects. For this reason, the kind of protests we'd see in Hong Kong later on would have been virtually unthinkable in Macau - not only was the government's autonomy more limited from the get-go, but also, everyone knew that protests in Macau would be entirely futile. Not to mention: Macau today would actually probably be even more linguistically cut-off from the world than it was back then, and more plugged into China. As I said, very few Macanese back in 1999 spoke Portuguese - and many of them left, while new generations never got to learn it. With regards to the present, all I can say is that I'm glad that most restaurants still stick with bilingual menus, because the service staff speak only Cantonese or Mandarin, and my stay in Macau was far too brief for me to even think about learning either :). English is penetrating Macau, but it is slow-going, particularly since young people usually learn English with the intent of leaving, not staying. Even the casino industry today is more oriented towards Mainland China than overseas visitors.
Thank you for bringing this subject to light! Most channels are so Eurocentric and recycle the same content. Having some Asian history and geopolitics is a breath of fresh air. I also like the three part format. I don't usually sit around watching videos for half an hour, so having the option to watch it in parts makes it more convenient. Keep up the good work!
@@Asianometry Keep doing what you're doing, but decolonization in Asia is a great subject to look into. My personal favourite videos of yours are the Chinese Civil War and KMT withdrawal to Taiwan. We don't hear much about the RoC/Taiwan in Canada (for obvious reasons), so videos on that are of great interest.
There is no fundamental issue with videos being "Eurocentric". If they can portray the facts accurately, then it doesn't matter which perspective the story is told from. And as far as I can tell, this TH-cam channel isn't really Asia-centric, but it is rather unbiased towards any side (but the narrator seems to be a Chinese American, though I'm not too sure). There are real "Asia-centric" (China-centric) TH-cam channels, and many of them are absolute cancer.
Makes sense that China would handle the Macau handover smoothly and agreeably to keep good relations with Portugal, since as you said, it was pretty much a done deal more than 2 decades ago. I think the 2 years delay to 1999 was for the Portugal "save face" effort (giving it due recognition instead of risking being overshadowed by Hong Kong handover if both were done at the same time).
The problem with Taiwan is that it is large, homogeneous (there are two main ethnic groups in Taiwan), and has a long history as a distinct region, unlike Macau and Hong Kong. Whilst Macau is an international city of business (and quite a small city for Chinese standards), being mostly known for its gambling industry and attracting many rich Mainlander Chinese and foreigners, and whilst Hong Kong is also an international city which hosts many international businesses and is home to a large immigrant population, consisting of wealthy Europeans, South Asians who were brought over during British colonial times, an indigenous Chinese population, and a large population of recent Chinese immigrants from Guangdong (who came to Hong Kong to escape poverty or persecution), Taiwan is not an internationally renowned destination, Taiwan has a huge population of indigenous Chinese residents (though, 14% of the population of Taiwan are recent Chinese immigrants), and Taiwan is an entire Chinese Province, not just some small city full of rich immigrants and Chinese refugees; additionally, Taiwan has been administered separately from other regions of China for around 340-360 years, though it was only proclaimed as an independent province from Fujian in 1885. So, why is it so difficult for China to reclaim, or, more accurately, annex Taiwan? Is it because Taiwan is an American puppet, propped up by American guns? Or is it because Taiwan is controlled by the Kuomintang, with aims to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party and take control of all of China? Or is it because Taiwan is full of brainwashed Fujianese people who believe that they are a separate ethnicity from the Han Chinese? Well, actually, it is all of these things to some extent, though this doesn't explain the whole story, and these accusations are quite biased and hurtful. No, there is a major reason why Taiwan is still independent from China, and it is none of these reasons which I have listed. Unlike Macau and Hong Kong, Taiwan is not controlled by a foreign government. With Macau and Hong Kong, agreements on Sovereignty were the responsibility of external powers, those being China, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, this was only the case for Taiwan when it was under the control of the Japanese Empire, and even then, Japan had been ceded the territory of Taiwan in perpetuity, and this is why Japan conducted assimilation campaigns against the Taiwanese people whilst Taiwan was under its control, intending to permanently integrate Taiwan into Japan, politically, culturally, and ethnically. Meanwhile, concerning modern Taiwan, the modern Republic of China almost exclusively administers Taiwan, so the issue of giving up Taiwan is not just a cession of a single region but a cession of the ROC's entire Sovereignty, which is why it is not likely to happen in the near future. While it is true that the Kuomintang, the former rulers of the ROC, have in recent history decided to align themselves with the Chinese Communist Party and now believe that Taiwan must be reunited with China under the rule of the CCP, given that it is unrealistic for the KMT to reunite Taiwan with the Mainland under its own rule, Taiwan is still independent. And, the primary reason for Taiwan's Independence is that the Taiwanese people themselves - not the recent Chinese immigrants but rather the indigenous Chinese residents - want some form of independence or autonomy, whether that is "De Jure Independence" or "De Facto Independence". These people have been living in Taiwan for hundreds of years. They have experienced life under various regimes, but throughout all of these regimes, they have never lost their Taiwanese identity. And their Taiwanese identity didn't originally pertain to the idea that Taiwan is an independent country; instead, the Taiwanese people have always identified with the island of Taiwan, at one time "Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian Province, China", at a later time "Taiwan Province of China", at a later time "Taiwan Dependency of Japan", and at a later time "Republic of China (Taiwan)". Whilst the Mainlander Chinese, both the actual Mainlanders and the Mainlanders in Taiwan alike, love to refer to the Taiwanese as "Fujianese (and Hakka) immigrants in Taiwan", this designation is blatantly false. Ask yourself; does a Shanghainese person refer to himself as a Zhejiangese immigrant in Shanghai? No, he identifies as Shanghainese because that is his province. Likewise, the Taiwanese people are NOT Fujianese, at least not anymore. Nowadays, most Taiwanese people identify as Taiwanese, regardless of whether they believe that they are independent or not, and they only consider Fujian to be a distant ancestral homeland, rather than their own current homeland. Of course, the Hakka do often identify as Hakka, rather than as Taiwanese, but this is because the Hakka have never possessed their own province, whether in Taiwan or in Mainland China, and identify with the Hakka culture rather than with a hypothetical "Hakka Province". So, clearly, there does exist a distinct Taiwanese identity, even though the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang love to ridicule this identity, referring to the Taiwanese as mere Fujianese migrants. The only question of Taiwanese identity is whether the Taiwanese are a subgroup of the Han Chinese, or whether they are an independent ethnic group. Critically, the history of Taiwan is unique amongst regions of China; Taiwan was colonised only in (relatively) recent history by China, starting from 1683; though, Han Chinese people from Fujian Province began migrating to Taiwan in large waves during the early-1600s, to work for the Dutch East India Company and for the Kingdom of Tungning. Taiwanese people, for the first 2-3 centuries of living in Taiwan, experienced life as frontiersmen, expanding the territory of China by Sinicising the indigenous Austronesian natives and by increasing the population of Han Chinese on the island. Originally identifying as Fujianese, these people eventually came to identify as Taiwanese, and this identity was cemented through the shared experience of living in Taiwan as immigrants for hundreds of years, separated from China by the Taiwan Strait, and trying to adapt to life in a isolated island full of indigenous tribes and deadly diseases. In 1885, the Qing Dynasty proclaimed Taiwan to be its own independent province, separate from Fujian Province. Of course, Taiwan had already effectively been separate from Fujian since China had begun colonising the island, given that Taiwan and Fujian were separated by the large Taiwan Strait. The proclamation of an independent "Taiwan Province" was not very remarkable; life in Taiwan continued as normal, and most people did not care whether Taiwan was its own Chinese province or not; they mainly identified with the island of Taiwan, loosely identifying as ethnically Han Chinese (in the same way that the American settlers from the United Kingdom would primarily identify as American). Of course, shortly after the 1885 declaration of Taiwanese province-hood, Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895. The Taiwanese people initially resisted the Japanese invasion, with local militias defending Taiwanese villages, and with high-ranking Qing-loyalists proclaiming "the Democratic State of Taiwan". Regardless of self-identification and beliefs, the various ethnic groups on the island, which consisted of various Chinese peoples, such as the Hoklo Taiwanese, the Hakka Taiwanese, and the Mainlander Chinese officials stationed in Taiwan, as well as the various indigenous Austronesian tribes, all tried to defend Taiwan from a foreign Japanese invasion, and they resisted Japanese rule for a period of time after China ceded Taiwan to Japan. However, eventually, these people were defeated, and Japan gradually began to absorb Taiwan into its territory, such as by educating the Taiwanese in the Japanese language (this programme took several years to become successful, of course), and also by making the Taiwanese believe that they were citizens of Japan, and also by making the Taiwanese believe that they were ethnically Japanese. Nowadays, the Taiwanese no longer identify as Japanese. Even though most Taiwanese people have favorable views towards modern Japan, they would certainly not support Japan if it again decided to start invading and occupying all of its Asian neighbours, as it did 80 years ago. However, despite this fact, the Taiwanese people no longer identify strongly as Han Chinese either. First and foremost, the Taiwanese are a settler people, just like the Americans and the Australians. Secondly, the Taiwanese people love their island above all else, and their loyalty to their island is more important than their loyalty to any external government which might have control over the island. And thirdly, the Taiwanese identify strongly with their unique cultural experience, because this is the only history which they know. They never experienced the Xinhai Revolution. They never experienced the Warlord Period of China. They never experienced proper rule under the Republic of China (this only occurred from 1945 until 1949, but during that time, Taiwan was subjected to the February 28 Incident and Martial Law). And they also never experienced China's Communist Revolution, Cultural Revolution, and Economic Revolution (1978- and onwards, instigated by Deng Xiaoping). So, how can the Taiwanese identify as Han Chinese if they have experience history completely differently from the people living in Mainland China? (Continued below.)
Whilst it can be said that many Han Chinese people live in various regions overseas but have never lost their Han Chinese identity, it can also be said that these people have never experienced the same kinds of cultural pressures as the Taiwanese. Whilst most Overseas Chinese have been persecuted or discriminated against by foreigners for being Han Chinese, naturally making them gravitate towards the Chinese Motherland, Taiwanese people have, throughout history, been persecuted for being Taiwanese; first by the Japanese Colonisers, and later by the Chinese Mainlanders (Waishengren) who came to Taiwan as refugees in the 1940s-1950s. And whilst the other groups of Overseas Chinese have always been united by their Han Chinese identity, persecuted by local majority groups such as the Indonesians and the (White) Americans, the Taiwanese have always been united by their shared Taiwanese identity throughout their island's tumultuous history, and the Han Chinese identity has only been drifting further and further away after more and more decades of separation from Mainland China. This separation has been further exacerbated by the oppression instigated against the Taiwanese by the Mainlander Chinese immigrants during the 1940s-1990s, and the hostile threats by the Chinese Communist Party against the Taiwanese people over the decades have also not done a good job of convincing them that they are Han Chinese. "You are Han Chinese, or else!" The impression which Taiwanese people get from the Chinese Communist Party is that it's illegal for the Taiwanese to maintain their individual identity, which involves being a settler people living on a beautiful island, and also being forced to live under Japanese rule, under a Kuomintang Dictatorship, and now as a Democratic State which lacks recognition from the international community. So, this is why the Taiwanese people are not keen on reunification with China, and this is why the Taiwanese people would prefer to maintain their unique culture, identity, and way of life, which is similar to Mainland China's, but also quite different, and distinctly Taiwanese.
@@Asianometry Good idea. Except that I don't live in Taiwan. My maternal grandmother's paternal grandfather and mother were both born in Taiwan, in ~1880 and 1918, respectively. However, my maternal grandmother was born in Australia in 1944, in a POW camp for Japanese people. She was then, in 1946, repatriated to Taiwan, under the rule of the Republic of China, where she witnessed the February 28 Massacre. Then, her family migrated to Indonesia, where they had been living prior to having been captured and imprisoned during WWII. My grandmother then traveled to China and lived through the Cultural Revolution, where she met my maternal grandfather, who was a Chinese man who had been born and raised in Burma. They were married in Yunnan Province and then migrated to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, my grandmother discovered that she had possessed Australian citizenship for her entire life, due to possessing an Australian birth certificate. She contacted the Australian Embassy in Hong Kong, and they informed her that she was a full Australian citizen and that she could return to Australia. So, she returned to Australia in 1978 with my maternal grandfather and my young mother, and so my mother has grown up in Australia for most of her life, though having been born in China and having spent her early childhood living in Hong Kong. My father migrated to Australia in 1990 from Shanghai, People's Republic of China, and so I have visited China several times because of him, and I learnt about Chinese culture to a small degree as a young child. However, I have never been to Taiwan, Indonesia, or Burma. I have been to Hong Kong, though.
@@Asianometry I recently traveled to Hong Kong, where I met my grandmother's cousin, who is in her early-50s, I believe. She is half-Taiwanese and half-Chinese from Beijing. She was born and raised in Mainland China, before migrating to Hong Kong; her husband's family has been living in Hong Kong since the early to mid-1900s. My relative in Hong Kong is pro-Chinese Unification, though none of her ancestors has ever lived in Japanese Taiwan, because her father grew up in Indonesia and Australia, whereas her paternal grandparents emigrated from Taiwan in 1895, in order to escape Japanese rule. So, none of her ancestors has ever lived under Japanese rule in Taiwan. At the same time, her mother comes from Beijing, and would have had a strictly-Chinese upbringing. Edit: According to my relative in Hong Kong, our family has lived in Taiwan for 35 generations, though these claims seem rather dubious. The only person within my family who lived in Japanese Taiwan was my maternal grandmother's mother, who was born in Japanese Taiwan in 1918, and who emigrated from Taiwan in 1936. She is the only person who would have been directly affected by the experience of living under Japanese rule. I met my great grandmother when I was a young child. I was born in Adelaide, South Australia, whereas my great grandmother was living in Sydney at the time of my birth. My immediate family migrated to Sydney when I was young, and I met my great grandmother again in 2007; at this point, I was old enough to remember meeting her. According to my grandmother, who lives nearby to me in Sydney, my great grandmother hated the Japanese. However, she knew how to speak the Japanese language. And, when my grandmother was a young child living in Taiwan and later in Indonesia, my great grandmother tried to teach her to speak Japanese, though she was apparently "lazy" and didn't end up learning Japanese. I believe that my great grandmother might not have hated Japanese people as much as my grandmother seems to think. Or maybe, she was using the logic that "to defeat your enemy, you must understand your enemy". She managed not to strangle any Japanese to death in the internment camp, so that says something, at least. Apparently, she spent her time in the camp polishing the floorboards of her living quarters with butter.
Thanks for sharing. That is quite a mixing pot of a family history. Having never been to Australia myself, I actually only relatively recently found out about the large Chinese population there. Learning about their stories has been very enlightening. I don’t think you actually need to live in Taiwan or China or Hong Kong to write and vlog insightfully on the culture and history. I think what is only necessary is an open mind and good discussion. And maybe a microphone so you don’t get the same complaints I’m always getting.
The British also pressured Portugal a lot to make their sure they didn't have to give Hong Kongers any British citizenship so as to not seem as they weren't the only ones
yes they were and they are still valid to day. Were you told that in the present portuguese children currentely born in macau to a legal resident parent also gain right of abode from birth same with chinese children? Individuals of mixed portuguese-chinese heritage when applying for chinese citizenship through having a macao SAR permanent residency card their portuguese passport is still valid.
So, having seen your very recent video about casinos in Macau, and hearing mention of this series, I decided to prowl through your archive and have a look.
I lived in Macau for about eight months from November 1998 to June 1999 - my father started work there, and would remain there for half a decade, but I was in my last year of high school, so I only stayed until the end of the school year before going back to Poland. However, because I ultimately ended up going to university in Australia, I travelled again through Macau in December 1999, staying until January before going on to Australia - so, I was there for the takeover ceremonies. Later, I would be visiting my parents between semesters, so I would get brief but regular snapshots of Macau during that period.
With regards to the takeover, the photo around 7:25 really brings back memories. I was on that street that day - who knows, I might have been metres from where that photo was taken. We watched the parade-like entrance of Chinese troops as they drove through the street up to the parking lot of their new barracks, right in the middle of the city (the location was very show-of-force, although to be fair, I think it was temporary until they would establish a base in a more out-of-the-way location). Later that day, we climbed up to the top of Guia Hill, where the lighthouse is, and from where you can look on to most of the city centre, and I took a photo from there of that parking lot filled with armoured vehicles. Of course, even if my father really loved his cameras and had quite a nice one, it didn't have the kind of zoom lens you'd need to really make an interesting photo - which is probably a good thing, as I can just imagine being arrested by some over-eager police officer for espionage, had I been there with a long telescope ;). Meanwhile, my father, as a university professor, was also invited to attend the handover ceremony itself, though of course, he was just one of thousands of people in the audience, certainly not on the stage or anything like that.
With regards to the zeitgeist of that period, and my experiences and conversations with people in Macau at that time and in later years, there's a few things worth noting:
1. The Portuguese désintéressement was plainly visible, not to mention that it was something you heard about from all the long-term inhabitants. If you went to Hong Kong at that time, almost everyone spoke English - in Macau, however, almost no one spoke Portuguese. It was only in the last two decades before the handover that the Portuguese actually started making an effort in the area of education, and most people felt that this was basically being done not out of any conviction, but just to avoid public embarrassment should the education system (or lack thereof) come under scrutiny after the handover. This is not to say education was poor in Macau - it simply wasn't bound into a unified system. There were many schools, and some followed a more Chinese curriculum, others were Chinese-speaking clones of Portuguese schools, there was a few very select schools that taught in Portuguese, and two international schools that taught in English, one under a Canadian curriculum (this is where I finished school), and the other under its own curriculum. Likewise with universities - there was one main university. IU had heard a rumour, that the university was founded by some rich Macanese who were unhappy about their kids not being accepted to the HK university - whether there is any truth to this, I do not know, but certainly the university did not have a strong reputation. Then, there was the very strange institution where my father worked - today, it's the University of St Joseph, but at the time it was called the Inter-University Institute of Macau (try saying that quickly!). From what I know, it is a real university today, but back then, the institution had like half a dozen permanent staff members, and most courses would be run by visiting lecturers who would be brought in for a few weeks - and all the courses were taught in evenings, as the students were all part-time. This institution was directly governed by the Catholic bishop of Macau, and this also meant that it was very haphazard at that time - it seems everybody was taking a "wait and see" approach in the run-up to the handover... and even afterwards, too. It was very plain to see that the higher echelons of the institute and the diocese were planning to "escape" to Portugal as soon as possible.
Neither me, nor anyone in my family had any need to use any medical facilities in Macau during our time there, but from what I recall, it was the same story again: yes, there were hospitals, yes, they had a reasonable standard, and in fact were fairly recently built... because again, the government did not want to hand over a territory with a near-absent healthcare system. So, overall, it seems that the inevitability of the upcoming handover actually did wonders for Macau's government policies - they went to work specifically to prepare the territory for handover.
2. The enthusiasm of the Macanese for the handover was, as far as we could see, absolutely genuine. This was not Hong Kong. We could see the enthusiasm on the street the day the Chinese troops drove in, and besides this, it was easy to see that the Macanese were for the most part emotionally and intellectually Chinese. For example, when in 1999 US aircraft bombed the Chinese embassy in Kosovo, I could see that the outrage of my Macanese classmates was absolutely genuine. That having been said, my father also noted that he could see an influx of Chinese agents on the streets in the run-up to the takeover. Whether this was true or not is difficult to say - they weren't exactly wearing labels, but if my father, who had spent so many years under communism in Poland, felt that these people were recognisably government agents, I kinda take his word for it.
3. Strangely, it was possible at that time to live in Macau and be entirely oblivious to the crime problems that you discussed in your recent Macau video. At one point, during a class discussion, the topic of crime came up, and the teacher asked us who felt safe walking on the streets of Macau at night - and I was the only one who raised his hand. It took a while for it to sink in that this wasn't because my classmates were somehow paranoid, but rather because my family, being white, and having no contact with the casinos, would have basically been "off limits" within the local crime wars. Either way, however, I know now that when we arrived in Macau in November 1998, the worst of the crime wave was over. We literally never saw anything criminal on the streets, and given that my father's lectures were in the evenings, it wasn't unusual for us to be walking around the city at 10PM or later, eating in the restaurants, or simply taking a walk. Then again, we never got near the casinos - that is to say, we never went into them, and while you kinda have to walk past them when navigating the city during the day, we never got near them at night, so we basically kept away from the epicentre of crime.
4. My impression from later visits (the last time I was in Macau was 2018) is that the Macanese eventually did cool off on their love of the PRC - i.e. that reality of PRC rule was not what they had hoped for. However, they are also realistic about their prospects. For this reason, the kind of protests we'd see in Hong Kong later on would have been virtually unthinkable in Macau - not only was the government's autonomy more limited from the get-go, but also, everyone knew that protests in Macau would be entirely futile. Not to mention: Macau today would actually probably be even more linguistically cut-off from the world than it was back then, and more plugged into China. As I said, very few Macanese back in 1999 spoke Portuguese - and many of them left, while new generations never got to learn it. With regards to the present, all I can say is that I'm glad that most restaurants still stick with bilingual menus, because the service staff speak only Cantonese or Mandarin, and my stay in Macau was far too brief for me to even think about learning either :). English is penetrating Macau, but it is slow-going, particularly since young people usually learn English with the intent of leaving, not staying. Even the casino industry today is more oriented towards Mainland China than overseas visitors.
great read
Thank you, you're the best. Macau always gets overlooked.
Thank you for bringing this subject to light! Most channels are so Eurocentric and recycle the same content. Having some Asian history and geopolitics is a breath of fresh air.
I also like the three part format. I don't usually sit around watching videos for half an hour, so having the option to watch it in parts makes it more convenient. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the kind words and for watching. Anything you’d like to see me touch on?
@@Asianometry Keep doing what you're doing, but decolonization in Asia is a great subject to look into. My personal favourite videos of yours are the Chinese Civil War and KMT withdrawal to Taiwan. We don't hear much about the RoC/Taiwan in Canada (for obvious reasons), so videos on that are of great interest.
There is no fundamental issue with videos being "Eurocentric". If they can portray the facts accurately, then it doesn't matter which perspective the story is told from. And as far as I can tell, this TH-cam channel isn't really Asia-centric, but it is rather unbiased towards any side (but the narrator seems to be a Chinese American, though I'm not too sure). There are real "Asia-centric" (China-centric) TH-cam channels, and many of them are absolute cancer.
Makes sense that China would handle the Macau handover smoothly and agreeably to keep good relations with Portugal, since as you said, it was pretty much a done deal more than 2 decades ago. I think the 2 years delay to 1999 was for the Portugal "save face" effort (giving it due recognition instead of risking being overshadowed by Hong Kong handover if both were done at the same time).
You did a great job with these! Concise and engaging . I just had to click the next video !
Great history lesson!
The problem with Taiwan is that it is large, homogeneous (there are two main ethnic groups in Taiwan), and has a long history as a distinct region, unlike Macau and Hong Kong.
Whilst Macau is an international city of business (and quite a small city for Chinese standards), being mostly known for its gambling industry and attracting many rich Mainlander Chinese and foreigners, and whilst Hong Kong is also an international city which hosts many international businesses and is home to a large immigrant population, consisting of wealthy Europeans, South Asians who were brought over during British colonial times, an indigenous Chinese population, and a large population of recent Chinese immigrants from Guangdong (who came to Hong Kong to escape poverty or persecution), Taiwan is not an internationally renowned destination, Taiwan has a huge population of indigenous Chinese residents (though, 14% of the population of Taiwan are recent Chinese immigrants), and Taiwan is an entire Chinese Province, not just some small city full of rich immigrants and Chinese refugees; additionally, Taiwan has been administered separately from other regions of China for around 340-360 years, though it was only proclaimed as an independent province from Fujian in 1885.
So, why is it so difficult for China to reclaim, or, more accurately, annex Taiwan? Is it because Taiwan is an American puppet, propped up by American guns? Or is it because Taiwan is controlled by the Kuomintang, with aims to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party and take control of all of China? Or is it because Taiwan is full of brainwashed Fujianese people who believe that they are a separate ethnicity from the Han Chinese? Well, actually, it is all of these things to some extent, though this doesn't explain the whole story, and these accusations are quite biased and hurtful. No, there is a major reason why Taiwan is still independent from China, and it is none of these reasons which I have listed.
Unlike Macau and Hong Kong, Taiwan is not controlled by a foreign government. With Macau and Hong Kong, agreements on Sovereignty were the responsibility of external powers, those being China, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, this was only the case for Taiwan when it was under the control of the Japanese Empire, and even then, Japan had been ceded the territory of Taiwan in perpetuity, and this is why Japan conducted assimilation campaigns against the Taiwanese people whilst Taiwan was under its control, intending to permanently integrate Taiwan into Japan, politically, culturally, and ethnically. Meanwhile, concerning modern Taiwan, the modern Republic of China almost exclusively administers Taiwan, so the issue of giving up Taiwan is not just a cession of a single region but a cession of the ROC's entire Sovereignty, which is why it is not likely to happen in the near future.
While it is true that the Kuomintang, the former rulers of the ROC, have in recent history decided to align themselves with the Chinese Communist Party and now believe that Taiwan must be reunited with China under the rule of the CCP, given that it is unrealistic for the KMT to reunite Taiwan with the Mainland under its own rule, Taiwan is still independent. And, the primary reason for Taiwan's Independence is that the Taiwanese people themselves - not the recent Chinese immigrants but rather the indigenous Chinese residents - want some form of independence or autonomy, whether that is "De Jure Independence" or "De Facto Independence". These people have been living in Taiwan for hundreds of years. They have experienced life under various regimes, but throughout all of these regimes, they have never lost their Taiwanese identity. And their Taiwanese identity didn't originally pertain to the idea that Taiwan is an independent country; instead, the Taiwanese people have always identified with the island of Taiwan, at one time "Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian Province, China", at a later time "Taiwan Province of China", at a later time "Taiwan Dependency of Japan", and at a later time "Republic of China (Taiwan)".
Whilst the Mainlander Chinese, both the actual Mainlanders and the Mainlanders in Taiwan alike, love to refer to the Taiwanese as "Fujianese (and Hakka) immigrants in Taiwan", this designation is blatantly false. Ask yourself; does a Shanghainese person refer to himself as a Zhejiangese immigrant in Shanghai? No, he identifies as Shanghainese because that is his province. Likewise, the Taiwanese people are NOT Fujianese, at least not anymore. Nowadays, most Taiwanese people identify as Taiwanese, regardless of whether they believe that they are independent or not, and they only consider Fujian to be a distant ancestral homeland, rather than their own current homeland. Of course, the Hakka do often identify as Hakka, rather than as Taiwanese, but this is because the Hakka have never possessed their own province, whether in Taiwan or in Mainland China, and identify with the Hakka culture rather than with a hypothetical "Hakka Province".
So, clearly, there does exist a distinct Taiwanese identity, even though the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang love to ridicule this identity, referring to the Taiwanese as mere Fujianese migrants. The only question of Taiwanese identity is whether the Taiwanese are a subgroup of the Han Chinese, or whether they are an independent ethnic group. Critically, the history of Taiwan is unique amongst regions of China; Taiwan was colonised only in (relatively) recent history by China, starting from 1683; though, Han Chinese people from Fujian Province began migrating to Taiwan in large waves during the early-1600s, to work for the Dutch East India Company and for the Kingdom of Tungning. Taiwanese people, for the first 2-3 centuries of living in Taiwan, experienced life as frontiersmen, expanding the territory of China by Sinicising the indigenous Austronesian natives and by increasing the population of Han Chinese on the island. Originally identifying as Fujianese, these people eventually came to identify as Taiwanese, and this identity was cemented through the shared experience of living in Taiwan as immigrants for hundreds of years, separated from China by the Taiwan Strait, and trying to adapt to life in a isolated island full of indigenous tribes and deadly diseases.
In 1885, the Qing Dynasty proclaimed Taiwan to be its own independent province, separate from Fujian Province. Of course, Taiwan had already effectively been separate from Fujian since China had begun colonising the island, given that Taiwan and Fujian were separated by the large Taiwan Strait. The proclamation of an independent "Taiwan Province" was not very remarkable; life in Taiwan continued as normal, and most people did not care whether Taiwan was its own Chinese province or not; they mainly identified with the island of Taiwan, loosely identifying as ethnically Han Chinese (in the same way that the American settlers from the United Kingdom would primarily identify as American). Of course, shortly after the 1885 declaration of Taiwanese province-hood, Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895.
The Taiwanese people initially resisted the Japanese invasion, with local militias defending Taiwanese villages, and with high-ranking Qing-loyalists proclaiming "the Democratic State of Taiwan". Regardless of self-identification and beliefs, the various ethnic groups on the island, which consisted of various Chinese peoples, such as the Hoklo Taiwanese, the Hakka Taiwanese, and the Mainlander Chinese officials stationed in Taiwan, as well as the various indigenous Austronesian tribes, all tried to defend Taiwan from a foreign Japanese invasion, and they resisted Japanese rule for a period of time after China ceded Taiwan to Japan. However, eventually, these people were defeated, and Japan gradually began to absorb Taiwan into its territory, such as by educating the Taiwanese in the Japanese language (this programme took several years to become successful, of course), and also by making the Taiwanese believe that they were citizens of Japan, and also by making the Taiwanese believe that they were ethnically Japanese.
Nowadays, the Taiwanese no longer identify as Japanese. Even though most Taiwanese people have favorable views towards modern Japan, they would certainly not support Japan if it again decided to start invading and occupying all of its Asian neighbours, as it did 80 years ago. However, despite this fact, the Taiwanese people no longer identify strongly as Han Chinese either. First and foremost, the Taiwanese are a settler people, just like the Americans and the Australians. Secondly, the Taiwanese people love their island above all else, and their loyalty to their island is more important than their loyalty to any external government which might have control over the island. And thirdly, the Taiwanese identify strongly with their unique cultural experience, because this is the only history which they know. They never experienced the Xinhai Revolution. They never experienced the Warlord Period of China. They never experienced proper rule under the Republic of China (this only occurred from 1945 until 1949, but during that time, Taiwan was subjected to the February 28 Incident and Martial Law). And they also never experienced China's Communist Revolution, Cultural Revolution, and Economic Revolution (1978- and onwards, instigated by Deng Xiaoping). So, how can the Taiwanese identify as Han Chinese if they have experience history completely differently from the people living in Mainland China?
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Whilst it can be said that many Han Chinese people live in various regions overseas but have never lost their Han Chinese identity, it can also be said that these people have never experienced the same kinds of cultural pressures as the Taiwanese. Whilst most Overseas Chinese have been persecuted or discriminated against by foreigners for being Han Chinese, naturally making them gravitate towards the Chinese Motherland, Taiwanese people have, throughout history, been persecuted for being Taiwanese; first by the Japanese Colonisers, and later by the Chinese Mainlanders (Waishengren) who came to Taiwan as refugees in the 1940s-1950s. And whilst the other groups of Overseas Chinese have always been united by their Han Chinese identity, persecuted by local majority groups such as the Indonesians and the (White) Americans, the Taiwanese have always been united by their shared Taiwanese identity throughout their island's tumultuous history, and the Han Chinese identity has only been drifting further and further away after more and more decades of separation from Mainland China.
This separation has been further exacerbated by the oppression instigated against the Taiwanese by the Mainlander Chinese immigrants during the 1940s-1990s, and the hostile threats by the Chinese Communist Party against the Taiwanese people over the decades have also not done a good job of convincing them that they are Han Chinese. "You are Han Chinese, or else!" The impression which Taiwanese people get from the Chinese Communist Party is that it's illegal for the Taiwanese to maintain their individual identity, which involves being a settler people living on a beautiful island, and also being forced to live under Japanese rule, under a Kuomintang Dictatorship, and now as a Democratic State which lacks recognition from the international community. So, this is why the Taiwanese people are not keen on reunification with China, and this is why the Taiwanese people would prefer to maintain their unique culture, identity, and way of life, which is similar to Mainland China's, but also quite different, and distinctly Taiwanese.
Looks like you need to make your own videos too. I’d watch them.
@@Asianometry Good idea. Except that I don't live in Taiwan.
My maternal grandmother's paternal grandfather and mother were both born in Taiwan, in ~1880 and 1918, respectively. However, my maternal grandmother was born in Australia in 1944, in a POW camp for Japanese people. She was then, in 1946, repatriated to Taiwan, under the rule of the Republic of China, where she witnessed the February 28 Massacre. Then, her family migrated to Indonesia, where they had been living prior to having been captured and imprisoned during WWII. My grandmother then traveled to China and lived through the Cultural Revolution, where she met my maternal grandfather, who was a Chinese man who had been born and raised in Burma. They were married in Yunnan Province and then migrated to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, my grandmother discovered that she had possessed Australian citizenship for her entire life, due to possessing an Australian birth certificate. She contacted the Australian Embassy in Hong Kong, and they informed her that she was a full Australian citizen and that she could return to Australia. So, she returned to Australia in 1978 with my maternal grandfather and my young mother, and so my mother has grown up in Australia for most of her life, though having been born in China and having spent her early childhood living in Hong Kong. My father migrated to Australia in 1990 from Shanghai, People's Republic of China, and so I have visited China several times because of him, and I learnt about Chinese culture to a small degree as a young child. However, I have never been to Taiwan, Indonesia, or Burma. I have been to Hong Kong, though.
@@Asianometry I recently traveled to Hong Kong, where I met my grandmother's cousin, who is in her early-50s, I believe. She is half-Taiwanese and half-Chinese from Beijing. She was born and raised in Mainland China, before migrating to Hong Kong; her husband's family has been living in Hong Kong since the early to mid-1900s.
My relative in Hong Kong is pro-Chinese Unification, though none of her ancestors has ever lived in Japanese Taiwan, because her father grew up in Indonesia and Australia, whereas her paternal grandparents emigrated from Taiwan in 1895, in order to escape Japanese rule. So, none of her ancestors has ever lived under Japanese rule in Taiwan. At the same time, her mother comes from Beijing, and would have had a strictly-Chinese upbringing.
Edit: According to my relative in Hong Kong, our family has lived in Taiwan for 35 generations, though these claims seem rather dubious.
The only person within my family who lived in Japanese Taiwan was my maternal grandmother's mother, who was born in Japanese Taiwan in 1918, and who emigrated from Taiwan in 1936. She is the only person who would have been directly affected by the experience of living under Japanese rule.
I met my great grandmother when I was a young child. I was born in Adelaide, South Australia, whereas my great grandmother was living in Sydney at the time of my birth. My immediate family migrated to Sydney when I was young, and I met my great grandmother again in 2007; at this point, I was old enough to remember meeting her.
According to my grandmother, who lives nearby to me in Sydney, my great grandmother hated the Japanese. However, she knew how to speak the Japanese language. And, when my grandmother was a young child living in Taiwan and later in Indonesia, my great grandmother tried to teach her to speak Japanese, though she was apparently "lazy" and didn't end up learning Japanese.
I believe that my great grandmother might not have hated Japanese people as much as my grandmother seems to think. Or maybe, she was using the logic that "to defeat your enemy, you must understand your enemy". She managed not to strangle any Japanese to death in the internment camp, so that says something, at least. Apparently, she spent her time in the camp polishing the floorboards of her living quarters with butter.
Thanks for sharing. That is quite a mixing pot of a family history. Having never been to Australia myself, I actually only relatively recently found out about the large Chinese population there. Learning about their stories has been very enlightening. I don’t think you actually need to live in Taiwan or China or Hong Kong to write and vlog insightfully on the culture and history. I think what is only necessary is an open mind and good discussion. And maybe a microphone so you don’t get the same complaints I’m always getting.
The British also pressured Portugal a lot to make their sure they didn't have to give Hong Kongers any British citizenship so as to not seem as they weren't the only ones
as a Chinese, we are never taught macau citizens were given EU passport
yes they were and they are still valid to day. Were you told that in the present portuguese children currentely born in macau to a legal resident parent also gain right of abode from birth same with chinese children? Individuals of mixed portuguese-chinese heritage when applying for chinese citizenship through having a macao SAR permanent residency card their portuguese passport is still valid.
I love your videos
Nice audio
This was a solid video
Awwww impressive
I thought that the UK strong armed the Portuguese into not giving the Macanese Portuguese citizenship? Damn...
Why do you think this?
What a sad day for us.